Hi All
I was going to sit this one out, but I had one of these eureaka moments and here I am. It's my first kitbash in competition but I'm not holding my breath here, i'm still learning. So a bit of alt history :-
The Germans had managed to succeed in the battle of the bulge due to over running a petrol dump and having enough impetus to reach Antwerp. German counter attacks on the Eastern Front had pushed back the Russians giving Germany that vital breathing space to develop and refine its jet aircraft and manufacture tank and other military hardware. The Meteors were still busy with the V1’s and the Airacomet was still too under powered to be a competitive aircraft. The Vampire, F84 and other jets were still yet to come on line. Which left a problem of intercepting high flying Arado 234 reconnaissance jets which were feeding accurate troop positions to German high command and nullifying the cracking of German secret codes.
A stopgap aircraft had to be found that was fast enough to catch the high flying Arado jets.
During one push the army overran a German airfield and although all the aircraft were gone they discovered a number of discarded Jumo jet engines some of which had not been damaged or destroyed as they had evacuated in a hurry. These engines were to become the basis for the stopgap interceptor.
There were plenty of Spitfires and Mustangs available. Originally it was intended to remove the existing engine and mount the new jet engine under the nose but designers soon realised that this would roast the undercarriage. Borrowing the Me262 concept a wing mount of two jet engines was carried out around the bomb shackle and gun area of the Mustang wing the wing structure was also reinforced to allow for the additional weight.
This left the nose clear for armament.
Two aircraft were converted, one with six fifty calibre machine guns, the other with two machine guns slighty offset to aĺlow for the installation of a thirty seven millimeter cannon. This had a limited capacity of only six rounds but it was thought that the extended range of the weapon would give it an edge in a chase situation.
And thus the Jetstang JXP-51 was borne or ‘Frankenstein’s Mustang’ as it was called by the mechanics.
It was not the most perfect combination, in flight it was adequate and fast, the armament worked well, but in its original tail-dragger form the ground clearance on the jet engines was very tight and had a tendency to blast chunks out of the concrete runway. To counter this a raised retractable tailwheel was installed rather like a reversed nose wheel to raise the tail and level the engines, this resolved the problem, however the amount of available flap had been considerably reduced due to the placement of the engines and as a result landings became a bit hot needing a lot of braking to avoid overshooting the runway.
To compensate the tailwheel was given a selectable landing position which brought the aircraft back to a lower, almost tail-dragger stance again, that allowed the pilot to flare the landing and create more breaking drag.
Having an aircraft capable of interception is one thing, getting into the best firing position is another, even with the improved speed and rate of climb. It was over two weeks before they had any success, the machine gun armed Jetstang managed to approach from behind and below and power climbed up under the enemy aircraft blasting it with its 50 cals before stalling away.
The cannon armed Jetstang had its chance two days later, this time it was already at height when the Arado was reported by conventional mustangs flying below him. Sure enough he spotted the intruder ahead and slightly below him, but the enemy saw the Jetstang coming and gave the engines full power it was all the Jetstang pilot could do to close the gap, at extreme range he fired the 37mm cannon and with the fourth round was rewarded by a bright flash on one of the wings of the Arado, this rapidly folded up and the aircraft spiralled towards the ground spreading parts as it went.
After this the reconnaissance Arado’s became more infrequent and harder to track down. It was as if the existance of the Jetstang seemed to keep them away. The Jetstang’s had a couple more successes against high flying conventional bombers that had been pressed into service as reconnaissance aircraft, desperate to glean battlefield information.
The success of the type was not to last, when returning from another fruitless mission one of the Jetstang’s had a heavier than usual landing and as it was taxiing up to the hardstanding the ground crew noticed the left wing had increased its dihedral by a considerable number of degrees. Closer inspection showed that despite the extra reinforcement in the wings the weight of the engine had finally taken its toll on the aircrafts structure and it had failed, the bumpy landing had been the final straw. The other Jetstang was grounded immediately and examination showed that this aircraft was also about to fail.
It was deemed that both aircraft were beyond reasonable repair. The engines were removed to be used on other projects and the aircraft stripped of all useful spares for the normal Mustangs. Both aircraft ended their lives sitting on oil drums on the edge of the airfield and we’re finally scrapped a few years later.
The Jetstang only occupied a short space in history but it fulfilled it’s task as a stopgap until better aircraft became operatonal .
Build details will follow shortly
Mog
>^-.-^<
